Patrick O'Brian - The Yellow Admiral

'I do beg your pardon, Jack,' he cried, making his entrance. 'I am abominably late. The current set north-east like a goddam millrace, and we had to pull against the tide as well.'

'Never mind, Billy, never mind. Even I miscalculate at times. Drink some sherry and recover your breath. You know Dr Maturin, I believe?'

'Of course I do: we are old friends. How do you do, sir? It is a great while since I have had the pleasure of seeing you.'

Harding came in at this point, and Killick just behind him, to ask, with half a disapproving eye on Captain Fanshawe, 'whether his honour would choose to have the soup held back still longer, or whether it might be set on table now?'

It was set on table, a lobster bisque (the one delight of these bleak rock-strewn waters) with the guests gathered round it; and presently Fanshawe, pushing his third plate away from him, said, 'Well, Jack, you and your people look wonderfully rich and happy and comfortable; I don't wonder at it, with such a prize under your belt, and a kindly Commissioner at Dock. But tell me, did the Yard serve out any slops?'

'Not so much as a tarpaulin jacket,' said Jack. 'I had no money by me, the prize not having been condemned, so there was no question of the customary presents here and there; then again I was much engaged in the country at the time; and although the Commissioner was wonderfully good to me where cordage and spars were concerned, and the powder-hoy, the bloody-minded victuallers were shocking remiss. And since I was in such a tearing hurry to get to sea, I did not stir them up but relied on their coming out to the squadron.'

'Then you may wait until we ground on our own beef-bones,' said Fanshawe. 'In Ramillies we are down to a few casks of bread, some weavilly oatmeal and what we can catch over the side. No poultry left - pigs a remote dream - precious few rats to be had under fourpence apiece - and as for slops... why, the purser told me but yesterday with tears in his eyes, that we had no jackets, no blankets and no slop shoes at all - this with winter coming on... The last store-ship was beaten back into Cawsand Bay, so nothing till next month. Can you spare us any? Even a couple of blankets for the sick-berth would be welcome.'

'I shall ask my purser,' said Jack, looking eagerly at the mutton, just coming in with a certain pomp-mutton, welcome, very welcome, in itself and because it might change the course of Fanshawe's dreary conversation.

The shoulder, though succulent and expertly carved, did not do so at first. 'No stores and no news,' said Fanshawe. 'The last we had was a great while ago, when Austria declared on our side. But Boney had thrashed the Austrians again and again, and he will certainly beat them this time too. Wellington sits there on the Garonne - the Land of Goshen, no doubt - instead of marching north; so the French ships of the line in Rochefort, La Rochelle and even Lorient can lure the offshore squadron westwards and combine with those here in Brest to cut us to pieces. Not that a battle would be much out of the way with the Admiral so far out of sight of Ushant it is impossible for us to prevent the French getting in with a west wind by either of the two main entrances. We take great pains, as you know damn well, and an anxious time we have of it, what with tides and rocks - more danger in this station than a battle once a week.'

'Allow me to carve you a slice of mutton, sir,' said Stephen.

'Well, if I must, I must. Thank you: it is truly capital mutton, perfectly hung. Now I will just quote you a piece from a letter I wrote to my poor wife, and then finish my dirge - apart from throwing out the remark that we do not possess a single second topsail among us all. Here is my piece. "I therefore bid adieu to snug beds and comfortable naps at night, never lying down but in my clothes. We hear no news here, and cannot be in more seclusion from the world, and with one object in view - that of preventing the French from doing harm." There. I have done.'

'A glass of wine with you, Billy,' said Jack, and the decanter went round, and round again; then the claret was replaced by port and after the first glass Stephen rose, begged Jack's pardon, but he had promised to see his patients at six bells, and he had just heard them strike.

'Mr Smith and Mr Macaulay,' he asked, far below, 'how do you do, the both of you? I am happy to see you so apparently well.'

They were well, they admitted, though hungry - the berth had eaten all their private stock and now they were down to ship's provisions - but they were afraid he would not be so pleased with the sick-berth nor with the medicine-chest.

The run ashore at Dock had produced such a number of cases of pox that the berth was over-filled and the chest almost bare of venereal medicines. They had also to add that in the last storm but one, three men had been washed bodily off the fo'c'sle, and that in the effort to get some sail on the ship to prevent her rolling her masts out, they had four broken limbs and some ugly dislocations, mostly reduced by now, but some with disquieting sequelae.

Before beginning his rounds Stephen asked, 'How is Bonden, the Captain's coxswain?'

'The man with the wig? Oh, quite well, sir, though I believe he asked for a purge some time ago. Yes, I gave him rhubarb, ounce a half: and it answered.'

'Please let him know I should like to see him, when it is his watch below.'

Eight bells, and with the usual sound of a great wooden hollow rumbling some hundreds of men hurried to and from their appointed places. Bonden was pinned and led to the dispensary, looking anxious. 'Oh, it's you again, sir,' he cried, smiling as he saw Stephen. 'I did not have time, just now, to ask after the ladies: I hope you left them well?'

'Very well indeed, thank you, Bonden: and they send their kindest wishes. Now I should just like to look at your head.'

The head, now covered with stubble, was indeed fit to be struck with a top-maul. The scars could be made out, but there was nothing of that yielding either side of the sagittal suture and a little above the lambdoid that had worried Dr Maturin. 'There,' he said, replacing the seamanlike wig, 'in my opinion you are as good as new. I shall tell the Captain: he was much concerned for you.'

'I know he was, sir - kept me from work as much as ever he could. But you know, sir, Killick and me, we are much concerned for him, if I may be so bold.'

Stephen nodded and said, 'You may find him better presently.'

In point of fact he was better already, very much better, recovered from his first almost painful ebullience and sitting there in the evening cabin with deadlights shipped and the Bellona snugged down, a moderate roll and a south-west breeze with a fine steady glass for once, he was perfectly ready to listen with close attention to Stephen's account of Woolcombe.

'I am heartily glad that Mrs Williams is gone back to Bath to live there with her friend,' he said. 'Sophie was never the same with her in the place. And I must say it was amazingly handsome in Diana to give them the little house.'

'Dear Diana: she is in funds again. So am I, as I told you.'

'And for my part I am not quite the abject, bankrupt pauper I was. The lawyers sent me some reports that would have sent me to the masthead if Sophie's letter had not arrived just before them: two of our appeals have succeeded, and Lawrence, that dear good man, says he is virtually certain of winning the third and last. And my share of this last prize should just about set me afloat again, in a very modest fashion.'

'From all I hear it was a splendid prize. I give you joy of her, brother, with all my heart.'

'Thank you, Stephen. She was, indeed. Rather in the style of the Frenchman we took off the Dry Tortugas, Hebe, formerly our Hyaena, you remember. She had taken an English Guineaman and her lovely cargo of gold-dust and ivory. Except that the Deux Fr�s, this most recent prize, had taken two Guineamen, each of them larger and richer than that dear old Intrepid Fox.'